`Justice Will Be Done'

December 22, 1999|By ARDY FRIEDBERG Staff Writer

For 90 minutes late Tuesday, the mother and sister of the two men killed in a wrong-way crash on Interstate 95 and their lawyers met with a senior prosecutor to discuss the progress of the criminal investigation into the incident.

The result: "Frustration," said Florence Thompson, the mother of Maurice Williams, 23, and Craig Chambers, 19, who died in the Nov. 23 collision with a car driven by David Farrall, a Miami-based FBI agent.

Her daughter, Charmaine Williams, was a bit more positive.

"We're hopeful the truth will come out and that the Florida Highway Patrol and the state attorney will do a good investigative job. We feel justice will be done," she said.

Farrall's 1998 green Honda crashed into a beige 1997 Kia driven by Maurice Williams in the northbound lanes of I-95 at about 12:45 a.m. on Nov. 23. Williams and Chambers died instantly.

The Florida Highway Patrol quickly released information to the public saying the Kia was heading south on the wrong side of the highway and overturned after the crash.

The next day, the agency backed off and said it was investigating the possibility that its initial conclusion might have been wrong. The agency is continuing the investigation.

A week later, FHP released a diagram showing that the northbound car had overturned after the crash. That car was the Kia. The agent's car had not overturned. FHP has yet to make a definitive statement about who caused the crash.

Earlier Tuesday, FHP spokesman Lt. Pembrook Burrows said the Patrol expected to complete its investigation in about three weeks.

On Tuesday, the Sun-Sentinel reported that the 36-year-old agent, who suffered two broken wrists and other injuries in the crash, had a blood alcohol level about twice Florida's legal limit of .08, according to sources.

Several independent sources have told the newspaper that Farrall was legally drunk when his car plowed into the Kia, killing Williams, a youth minister, and Chambers, a scholarship student at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

Their family has said the young men were driving to Boca Raton and could not have been going the wrong way. The Broward Medical Examiner's Office has said Williams and Chambers had no alcohol in their blood.

In early December, FHP served a search warrant on North Broward Medical Center, where Farrall was taken after the crash, for information on the agent.

The Sun-Sentinel has requested a copy of that warrant and has been denied by the hospital, the state attorney and FHP, all of whom cite the on-going investigation as the reason.

Farrall's lawyer, Bruce Udolf, has declined to comment on whether his client was drunk, saying he would wait until the facts are in.

Michael Horowitz, a senior felony trial supervisor at the State Attorney's Office, who initiated Tuesday's meeting with the family and the attorneys, had no comment after the conference in the State Attorney's Office.

Lawyers for the family said they asked Horowitz a series of questions about the agent's blood alcohol level, whether he was on duty and where he had been before the crash.

"We got no specifics and that's frustrating for the family," said Levi Williams. "But [Horowitz] did say there was no evidence to disprove the Highway Patrol's diagram showing the position of the cars and that means to us that the young men did not cause the crash."

"Also, [Horowitz] said that his office has good information about where the agent was earlier that evening and is trying to confirm it. He would not elaborate, but confirmed he had the results of the blood alcohol test on the agent," Williams said.

Chris Fertig, another family lawyer, said he was encouraged by the conversation with Horowitz. "We think they are going to get the answer and that justice will be served," Fertig said.

Ardy Friedberg can be reached at afriedberg@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4843